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When you bob up and
down in the ocean,
where does the
energy come from?
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A medium is any matter through which a mechanical wave can pass. Mediums can be solid, liquid, or gas. In the. ocean, the medium is water. With your car.
Typology: Lecture notes
2021/2022
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Do Now:
When you bob up and down in the ocean, where does the energy come from?
Mechanical Waves
A mechanical wave is a disturbance in matter that carries energy from one place to another. It is created when a vibration travels through a medium.
The energy in a wave does not carry the medium along with it. A mechanical wave MOVES THROUGH the medium. The medium will move as the wave passes by. The duck appears to simply bob up and down as the wave passes under it.
Transverse Waves
Waves that move the medium at right angles to the direction in which the waves
travel are called transverse waves.
So, how does light move?
Thanks to Einstein and Bose we know that light is both a wave we know as electromagne:c radia:on and a par:cle called a photon. The photon, because of its weird nature as a force carrier called a boson, has no mass. However it can s:ll be absorbed, reflected, or refracted if it comes in contact with a medium. That is why, like sound, the speed of light slightly varies between when it is in our atmosphere and when it is in space.
Photons are moving charged particles, which create an electric field perpendicular to the direction the particle is moving. This moving electric field creates a magnetic field moving perpendicular to the electric field
- What Are Waves?
Longitudinal Waves
The compressions of a longitudinal wave correspond to the crest of a transverse wave. The rarefactions correspond to troughs. The most common type of longitudinal (compression) wave is sound
Amplitude
The amplitude of a transverse wave is the distance from rest to crest. The height of a wave is the distance from trough to crest. The amplitude of a longitudinal wave is the distance from rest to the end of a compression.
Wavelength
The distance between a point on one wave and the SAME point on the next wave is called Wavelength. As you can see above, increasing the frequency of a wave decreases its wavelength
Wavelength
Surface Waves
An object floating on the surface of the ocean vibrates both UP and DOWN as well as BACK and FORTH (A CIRCULAR MOTION).
Calculating Wave Properties One end of a rope is vibrated to produce a wave with a wavelength of 0.25 meters. The frequency of the wave is 3.0 hertz. What is the speed of the wave?
1. What information are you given? Frequency = 3.0 hertz Wavelength = 0.25 m 2. What unknown are you trying to calculate? Speed 3. What formula contains the given quantities and the unknown? Speed = Wavelength x Frequency 4. Replace each variable with its known value. Speed = 0.25m x 3.0 hertz Speed = 0.75 m/s